An audience members listens to presentations at the Technori Pitch event on Dec. 4 in the Chase Auditorium in Chicago. (Nuccio DiNuzzo / Blue Sky)

Rahul Sood, co-head of the Microsoft Ventures Accelerator program, speaks at the opening of the Microsoft Center Berlin on Nov. 7 with the aid of an infographic. (Adam Berry / Getty Images)

SiNode Systems, a battery materials company, and BriteSeed, LLC, a medical device company, both out of Northwestern University, earned first and second place, respectively, in the 2013 Rice Business Plan Competition. Here, they show off the nearly $1.2 million they earned at the competition. (RBPC photo)

Samir Mayekar, CEO SiNode Systems, is no stranger to pitches. His team has won two major business-plan competitions this year. And the battery-material developer was named an “Up and Comer” at this year’s Chicago Innovation Awards.

Speaking recently at “Startup Sessions,” an all-day conference for energy companies sponsored by Clean Energy Trust at The University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, Mayekar offered six tips for entrepreneurs gearing up for a pitch.

1. Practice with an audience

“It is as much a public-speaking challenge as it is designing a business that can be successful. Don’t underestimate that. We actually had a public-speaking coach from (Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management) come in, especially for the scientists on our team. It’s a new lane for them, getting out of their comfort zone in front of an audience of four or five hundred people.”

2. Tell a story

“In all of the successful pitches, you got a sense as to why they got into what they were doing. They really had a personal connection. So it’s that story, not only just to grab someone’s attention in the audience, but also the flow of your pitch. If you start with what your value proposition is, then you want to say: ‘Here’s what others are doing. Here’s how we’re better than competitors. Here’s how we’ll be successful.’ You want to keep that narrative going, so it actually is a cohesive story.”

3. Show and tell

“I’m always a fan of show and tell. I usually have some vial of our material with us, because I never know when I’m going to need it. The more you can make what you’re pitching tangible to the audience, the more successful you’re going to be.”

4. Find a personal connection to the audience

“That was a challenge for us at SiNode because we had such a technical product — a sub-component of a battery. But we extrapolate it to talk about peoples’ issues with smart phones and tablets. And we found that personal connection. So I would challenge you to try and find that personal connection, because it’s the most important thing to capture an audience.”

5. Appendix equals credibility

“As soon as the sharks, or your investors, or whatever … start getting into very detailed questions, one option is that you can just answer them, and just talk and talk and talk. But I’m a very visual person. If you have an appendix, you can put up your financial projections. You can put up any questions you get about intellectual property, the competitive landscape, the market size, the segmentation. The more you have back there (in the appendix), the more credible you’re going to seem. I highly encourage you to have a very robust appendix whenever you’re presenting, in whatever context you may be, whether it’s a competition, or with venture investors, so that you can use those appendix files to be your guide to answering questions.”

6. Highlight your MVPs

I’m not talking about minimal viable products here. I’m talking about your most valuable players. In SiNode’s case, those were our scientists. It’s very easy, for those of you in the energy space, to have the business folks, the MBAs, the people used to going there and pitching, to lead that. But we took a completely different approach. We wanted to make sure our scientists were featured front and center. It took a lot of coaching. But, by having them up there presenting, it just gave us an extra layer of credibility. And they can answer questions in a way that sometimes I just am not able to, because they’re the technical experts.”